SHOES

Alice needed to have her feet measured again - she had them checked a month ago but hadn't grown. The urgency of shoes increased at the end of the week, when her black patent Mary Janes started to fall off as the V*elcro lost its stickiness.

Locally the only reasonable brand available tend to be fussy with lots of embroidery and icky colours - so it's a 40+ mile return journey to C*ardiff or B*ristol for shoe shopping. I'd heard a lot about one particular store in C*ardiff, so we set off to try them. It took 50 minutes to get there and park (C*ardiff's going through major retail change with my usual haunts and routes disappearing into rubble to be renovated, so I don't know my way round as it's changing all the time).

The trip was made out of necessity (shoes falling off all the time) but the timing (in the half term holidays) couldn't have been worse. Apparently we were lucky to only wait 45 minutes! Unfortunately Alice's feet hadn't grown (it would be easier to pay for new shoes if the old ones had also become too small!) I'm quite picky about what I want Alice to wear (no surprise to those who know me away from the blog!) I wanted plain shoes, navy or black patent, preferably with buckles not V*elcro (didn't like it even before it failed). The lady who served us was great - calm, sensible and she talked to Alice as well as me and listened to my requests! I had a choice of shoes!! The sensible decision came down to the same shoes as before (black patent Mary Janes with V*elcro) or navy MJs with a buckle. The navy shoes were a lighter style and less clumpy but I like the hard wearing nature of patent, in the end I opted for the navy ones - a change and hopefully buckles won't fail! Alice was very good throughout the time in the shop and I was very proud of her behaviour.